Big in Malta

Malta: the much-overlooked jewel in the Mediterranean’s crown; the centre of Europe’s gambling industry; the playground of Man United footballers; the pillar of martial resistance; Caravaggio’s haunt; the heart of teenage language-school hedonism; the Rock in the sea... and the glorious reviewer of The Pornographer of Vienna: take a look at the learned review in the Times of Malta.

When Caravaggio had committed a murder in Italy he fled to Malta where the island took mercy on him and made him a knight. He also produced a remarkable masterpiece The Beheading of St John the Baptist in 1608, which still hangs in St John’s Cathedral in Valletta. At the bottom of the painting, the murderous Caravaggio signs his own name in the fresh blood spurting out of The Baptist’s neck.

I can see why the Maltese might take to Schiele.